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L-13109 1 of 3
The reasons for this rule are thus stated in Underhill's work on Criminal Evidence (second edition) on page 346:
At common law, neither a husband nor a wife was a competent witness for or against the other in any
judicial proceedings, civil or criminal, to which the other was a party. . . . If either were recognized as a
competent witness against the other who was accused of crime, . . . a very serious injury would be done to
the harmony and happiness of husband and wife and the confidence which should exist between them.
In Greenleaf's classical work on evidence, in section 337 [vol. I], the author says, in stating the reasons for the rule
at common law:
The great object of the rule is to secure domestic happiness by placing the protecting seal of the law upon
all confidential communications between husband and wife; and whatever has come to the knowledge of
either by means of the hallowed confidence which that relation inspires, cannot be afterwards divulged in
testimony even though the other party be no longer living.
This case does not fall with the text of the statute or the reason upon which it is based. The purpose of section 58 is
to protect accused persons against statements made in the confidence engendered by the marital relation, and to
relieve the husband or wife to whom such confidential communications might have been made from the obligation
of revealing them to the prejudice of the other spouse. Obviously, when a person at the point of death as a result of
injuries he has suffered makes a statement regarding the manner in which he received those injuries, the
communication so made is in no sense confidential. On the contrary, such a communication is made for the express
purpose that it may be communicated after the death of the declarant to the authorities concerned in inquiring into
the cause of his death.
The same theory as that upon which section 58 of General Orders No. 58 is based, underlies section 383, paragraph
3 of Act No. 190, which reads as follows:
A husband cannot be examined for or against his wife without her consent; nor a wife for or against her
husband without his consent; nor can either, during the marriage or afterwards, be, without the consent of
the other, examined as to any communication made by one to the other during the marriage; but this
exception does not apply to a civil action or proceeding by one against the other, or to a criminal action or
proceeding for a crime committed by one against the other.
The only doubt which can arise from a reading of this provision relates to the meaning of the words "during the
marriage or afterwards," and this doubt can arise only by a consideration of this phrase separately from the rest of
the paragraph. Construed as a whole it is evident that it relates only to cases in which the testimony of a spouse is
offered for or against the other in a proceeding to which the other is a party. The use of the word "afterwards" in the
phrase "during the marriage or afterwards" was intended to cover cases in which a marriage has been dissolved
otherwise than by death of one of the spouses as, for instance, by decree of annulment or divorce.
The declarations of a deceased person while in anticipation of certain impending death, concerning the
circumstances leading up to the death, are admissible in a prosecution of the person charged with killing the
declarant. (U. S. vs. Gil, 13 Phil., Rep., 530.) Such dying declarations are admissible in favor of the defendant as
well as against him. (Mattox vs. U. S., 146 U. S., 140.) It has been expressly held in several jurisdictions in the
United States that the widow of the deceased may testify regarding his dying declarations. In the case of the State
vs. Ryan (30 La. Ann., 1176), cited by appellant in his brief, the court said:
The next bill is as to the competency of the widow of the deceased to prove his dying declarations. We see
no possible reason for excluding her . . . after the husband's death she is no longer his wife, and the rules of
US v. Antipolo G.R. No. L-13109 3 of 3